History of San Bernardino, California
Encyclopedia
San Bernardino, California
, was named in 1810. This article relates to the present-day city of San Bernardino and its surrounding areas.
The Tongva Indians also called the San Bernardino area Wa'aach in their language.
The traditional (since there is a dispute as to the following events) founding and naming of San Bernardino is that Padre Francisco Dumetz
, a Franciscan priest, made a trip from the Mission San Gabriel Arcángel
to the San Bernardino Valley
on May 20, 1810, the feast day of Saint Bernardino of Siena (San Bernardino in Spanish) during California's Mission Period. That year Politana, the first Spanish settlement in the San Bernardino Valley, was established as a mission chapel and supply station for travelers on the road into California from Sonora, by the Mission San Gabriel in the a rancheria of the Guachama Indians that lived on the bluff that is now known as Bunker Hill.
at an Indian rancheria called Guachama, the site of which is in modern-day Redlands, California
, and Rancho San Bernardino
. A group of adobe buildings were constructed around 1830. A ditch, called a zanja, from Mill Creek to site was dug by local Indians for the Franciscans. The site was closed when Governor Figueroa closed down the mission system in 1834. The site would later be known as "Old San Bernardino." Today, the site is known as the (historically inaccurate) San Bernardino Asistencia
.
Jedediah Strong Smith entered the valley with 15 trappers in late November 1826 on the way to Mission San Gabriel.
Kit Carson
and a group of trappers went through the Cajon Pass
in 1830. The Cajon Pass
was used by many early explorers, settlers, and traders going to places further West.
In 1839, the Lugo's colonization permit was granted for 18 leagues of land. In the same year, the Lugo Family built an adobe house where the current county courthouse sits today.
The plan for colonization was not successful. In 1841, Antonio Lugo prepared another petition. This time, it requested a land grant in the name of three of his sons, José del Carmen Lugo
, José Maria Lugo, Vicente Lugo, and José del Carmen's friend, Diego Sepulveda.
On June 21, 1842, Rancho San Bernardino was granted to Antonio Maria Lugo, his sons and his nephews, who grazed approximately 4000-6000 cattle in the area. The grant included a large part of the San Bernardino valley, 37700 acres (153 km²) in all. Lugo's adobe would later become Amasa M. Lyman's house. His brother repaired the Estancia and lived there. A community that grew up astride the Santa Ana River
northeast of current-day Redlands would be known as Lugonia. It lost its identity with the November 1888 incorporation of Redlands.
In 1843, Michael White (also known in Spanish as Miguel Blanco), a Mexican citizen of English origin, was granted Rancho Muscupiabe
, named after the Serrano village Amuscupiabit, "Place of little pines." Michael White built a house overlooking the Cajon Pass
, but Native Americans from the desert stole his grazing stock, and he abandoned the Rancho after nine months.
In 1847, after hostilities of the Mexican-American War had ended, the Mormon Battalion
of the U.S. Army occupied San Diego and Los Angeles. A detachment of the Los Angeles troops, led by Captain Jefferson Hunt
was stationed at the southern end of the Cajon Pass
to protect Mexican ranchos from Indian raids. The story of the Battalion started in Council Bluffs, Iowa
on July 10, 1846 and arrived in San Diego on January 29, 1847. Company C was dispatched to guard the Cajon Pass
. On furloughs, Captain Hunt and others worked for Rancho Santa Ana del Chino
owner Isaac Williams
. After the War, the Battalion mainly went back to Utah
. Many Battalion troops returned to families in Utah via San Francisco and the Sacramento area. A group led by Hunt traveled to Salt Lake City by way of the Old Spanish Trail through the Cajon Pass with which they were so familiar.
After rejoining his family in Utah, Hunt got the contract for mail delivery between Salt Lake and Los Angeles. He also organized several cattle drives, buying stock from ranchos owners to deliver to hungry Mormons in Utah. It was during this time that Hunt started preliminary negotiations with Williams with the idea of buying Rancho del Chino.
Mormon Leader Brigham Young
saw Southern California as a supply source for the salt flats of Utah, and as an immigration and mail stop between Salt Lake City and San Pedro
, California. A group of almost 500 Mormons left Utah for California in 1851. They found abundant water in the valley, along with willows, sycamores, cottonwood and mustard, as well as the Yucca plant. The Mormon contingent was led by Captain David Seely (later first Stake President), Captain Jefferson Hunt
and Captain Andrew Lytle, and included Apostles Amasa M. Lyman and Charles C. Rich
. They first made camp at the Sycamore Grove, about 1.5 miles (2.4 km) southeast of the present Glen Helen Regional Park. They stayed until the sale of Rancho San Bernardino could be arranged.
In September 1851, Lugo sold the Rancho to members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons). The Rancho included most of modern San Bernardino among other areas, though part of the northern areas of the City were part of Rancho Muscupiabe. The price for 40000 acres (161.9 km²) was $77,000 with $7,000 down.
The Mormons built Fort San Bernardino at the site of the present county courthouse. Inside the fort, they had small stores, and outside, they grew wheat and other crops. They later moved outside the walls of the fort when feared-attacks did not materialize. The Mormon Council House was built in 1852. It was used as the post office, school, church, and was the county courthouse from 1854 to 1858.
On November 7, 1852, Colonel Henry Washington, deputy surveyor (by contract with the United States Surveyor General for California) surveyed the San Bernardino Base Line and Meridian from a point just west of Mount San Bernardino, at an elevation of 10300 feet (3,139.4 m), east of present day Highland. The Base and Meridian lines serve as the initial surveying point (known as the point of beginning) for all of Southern California.
San Bernardino County was formed from Los Angeles County in 1853 based on Assemblyman Jefferson Hunt
's bill. Captain Hunt was a leader of the Mormon expedition.
In 1853, the Mormons laid out the current street grid system, one mile (1.6 km) square, which is based upon the grid layout of Salt Lake City. Each block was 8 acres (32,374.9 m²). The plan was laid out by Henry G. Sherwood, and assisted by Fred T. Perris. The east west streets were numbered, from First Street to Ninth Street. The north-south streets were named Kirtland Street (later "A" street, then Sierra Way); Camel Street(later "B" Street, then Mountain View Avenue; Crafton Street(later "C" Street, then Arrowhead Avenue; Utah Street (later "D" Street); Salt Lake Street (later "E" Street); California Street (later "F" Street); Independence Street (later "G" Street"); Nauvoo Street (later "H" Street); and Far West Street; (later "I" Street). The Mormons also built a road in 1853 to Los Angeles The Mormons were also responsible for the school system, creating Warm Springs, a school still in use today, as well as a school at the present site of Pioneer Park.
The City of San Bernardino was first incorporated on April 1, 1854. Mormon Apostle Amasa M. Lyman (who was later excommunicated, then postumously reinstated) was the City's first Mayor. Apostle Charles Coulson Rich became the second Mayor. At incorporation, there were approximately 1,200 residents, 900 of them Mormons. They dominated local politics and forbade drinking and gambling.
Mormons created the first timber road to the mountains, and a flour mill (on Mill Street). In 1855, they diverted water from Waterman Canyon to Town Creek by means of a flume.
The Mormons created a temple block (but never a temple) in the center of the newly-laid out town between present-day 5th, 6th, E, and F Streets. They created a "Public Square," in which they celebrated the 4th of July
. Later, after the Mormons returned to Utah, part of the land went to the Catholic Church, and part went to Dr. and Mrs. Quinn. In 1873, Bishop Amat, the Bishop of the Los Angeles and Monterrey Diocese, granted the northern part of the block to the City. It was later called "City Park," then "Lugo Park" until 1915, when it was renamed Pioneer Park, which it is still called today. A Pavilion, a log cabin, and the Municipal Auditorium (erected in 1921 to honor the dead of World War I
were all built in the park, though the Pavilion and log cabin burnt down, and the Auditorium was torn down in 1979. The Norman F. Feldheym Library was built on the site in 1985. The park also contains two Civil War
cannons.
The Mormons named the Arrowhead, California
, a natural rock formation above Arrowhead Springs, the "Ace of Spades." On a clear day, the Arrowhead can be seen from downtown San Bernardino.
A small Jewish community formed in Mormon San Bernardino, including Lewis Jacobs and Marcus Katz in 1852. Lewis Jacobs was a miner and a peddler. He co-owned a mountain sawmill, started the original Bank of San Bernardino, and helped establish the Home of Eternity Cemetery. Services began in the 1850s, but Congregation Emanuel, still active today, was not officially chartered until 1891, and its first structure was built in 1921. The Home of Eternity Cemetery was given by the Mormons to the Jews. It is the oldest Jewish cemetery in continuous use in Southern California. Marcus Katz was a merchant and civic leader and the name-sake of the four story Katz Building (built in the 1890s) at Third and "E" Streets. He died in 1899.
Another possible explanation for the recall was Young's fear of a rival settlement to Salt Lake in a better location with a better climate with greater agricultural possibilities. Many Mormon migrants were expecting to go to California from the beginning. Young was probably headed there all along as demonstrated by a vanguard shipload of Mormons organized by Samuel Brannan who had already arrived in San Francisco from New York and were waiting for the main party there. The Mormon Battalion was also there, at the expense of the US Government to which Young had offered the manpower as a way of getting them to California. Brannan met Young in Utah and tried to convince him to keep going. Young ignored his advice and stopped at Salt Lake before himself returning east for the winter. Brannan returned to San Francisco. Young was later interested in California as a source of resupply and of tithing income from Mormon gold diggers. He was not happy with the large response in Utah to the Lyman and Rich call for San Bernardino. He was wary of Lyman and Rich's independence and feared a mass migration from Utah to California. At one point sentries were placed around settlements and along the trails to prevent Mormons from leaving Utah at the risk of being shot. Young, who had authorized the venture, undermined the San Bernardino operation almost from the beginning and guaranteed its failure and the financial loss of the investors by calling them back just before the mortgage was paid off, depressing the value of the real estate as they all rushed to sell. Many who had already made great sacrifices for the Church were wiped out again by Young's far from benign actions. Many were forced to sell their property at a fraction of their original cost.
Though some of the Mormons remained, mainline Latter Day Saint structures were not reestablish until the 1920s. The remaining residents lacked organization and resources to compensate for the mass departure of the predominant Mormon population, which devastated the local economy. The City disincorporated. Among the people remaining was Celia Mounts Hunt, Captain Hunt's wife. She died on January 28, 1897 and is buried in Pioneer Cemetery.
In 1857, three orange trees were planted in Old San Bernardino. They were not the Washington Navel Orange that would later achieve great fame; they came in 1873 from Brazil to Riverside, California
, then a part of San Bernardino County.
The City continued to develop in the Mormon absence, largely as a commercial center. Dr. Ben Barton arrived in 1858, erecting an adobe drugstore/office at 4th and "C" (now Arrowhead Avenue) Street. Barton also became postmaster, County Superintendent of Schools, and purchased the Estancia
which is today on Barton Road in Redlands, and moved there with his family. He died in 1899.
Gold was discovered by William Francis "Bill" Holcomb in the Holcomb
and Bear Valleys in 1860. The boom-town of Belleville
briefly threatened to take the county seat away from San Bernardino. San Bernardino won by one vote.
California remained in the Union during the Civil War
, however, there were many Confederate sympathizers in the area. A brief skirmish between Unionists and Confederate sympathizers erupted in the mountains.
The stagecoaches of Phineas Banning
had a stop in downtown San Bernardino during the 1860s.
In 1862, a flood largely destroyed the earlier settlement of Agua Mansa
, settled in the 1830s by New Mexicans in present day Colton
. The Catholic Church there was rebuilt in downtown San Bernardino in 1865. That wooden church burnt down in 1878 and another was built. The present church, at the corner of Fifth Street and "F" was built in 1910. The flood caused severe damage along the Santa Ana River's tributaries, particularly Lytle Creek. Topsoil
was washed away.
In 1864, "Dr." David Noble Smith established a "treatment house" at the Arrowhead hot springs. By 1868, it had been enlarged to create a hotel. In 1885, he leased the property to Darby and Lyman of Los Angeles. Three days after Smith's death on March 17, 1885, the hotel burnt down. Darby and Lyman incorporated the Arrowhead Hot Springs Company, and rebuilt a new hotel in 1886 for $150,000. After it was expanded to 120 rooms it was the largest hotel in the San Bernardino area until it, too, burnt down on July 4, 1895. The third hotel was built by Seth Marshall in 1905. In 1930, it was purchased by a consortium of Hollywood types. In the days before air travel, it was marketed to Hollywood stars like Loretta Young
, Mary Pickford
, Spencer Tracy
, and Humphrey Bogart
. A forest fire destroyed the third hotel in November 1938. The present structure (the fourth hotel) opened in December 1939 at a cost of $1.5 million. This time, the hotel was six stories, and the grand opening featured Judy Garland
, Al Jolson
, and Rudy Vallee
. However, World War II
caused the hotel to be taken over as naval hospital in 1944. After the war, Elizabeth Taylor
spent her honeymoon with Conrad Hilton
on the sixth floor. The hotel was purchased by Campus Crusade for Christ
in 1962. It was used as world headquarters until 1991. It was operated as a Christian Conference Center in 1999. The City of San Bernardino is trying to annex the property into the City as part of a private development and redevelopment of Arrowhead Springs. In 1894, Arrowhead Brand Mountain Spring Water began to be pumped from near the site, as it is today. However, Arrowhead Brand Water also comes from "natural mountain sources in the United States and Canada" since it was purchased by Nestle Waters North America, Inc.
A young Wyatt Earp
and his family traveled to San Bernardino by wagon train, arriving in 1864. Virgil Earp
later settled in Colton, California
, where he became town marshal. Late in life, in the 1920s, Wyatt became a ceremonial San Bernardino County Deputy Sheriff.
In 1866, militia forces from San Bernardino killed Serrano
men, women, and children in a 32-day campaign. Yuhaviatam tribal leader Santos Manuel (from whom the name "San Manuel comes)led the remaining Yuhaviatam from the mountains to valley floor.
In August 1867, the first Chinese immigrants arrived in San Bernardino. By 1870, there were 16 young males, including Ah Wing and Jim Kang. They were laundry men, cooks, and houseboys, according to the Census. During a state-wide depression in 1875, San Bernardino's Caucasian residents criticized the Chinese for depressing wage rates. The Chinese were forced to move in 1878 to a Chinatown on Third Street between what is now Arrowhead Avenue and Sierra Way. By the late 1890s, San Bernardino's Chinatown had between 400-600 residents. Many of its residents worked in produce, with farms in what would become the Base Line Gardens tract east of Waterman Avenue. By the mid 1920s, Chinatown was largely abandoned. It became the site for Caltrans. When the Caltrans buildings were torn-down, several Chinese artifacts were found. The site is being prepared for a parking lot, and is slated to eventually become a new central court building.
By the 1870s, the City had several large stores and two hotels.
Though the first orange trees were planted in the county in 1857, in 1873 the first Washington Navel Orange tree
was planted in Riverside, then a part of San Bernardino County. The area, like many others in Southern California, became associated with oranges. An orange still graces the city seal today, and represents all agriculture in the City.
In 1874, the County established the first permanent courthouse built for that purpose, a two-story structure.
In 1873, The Southern Pacific Railroad
(SP) wanted to lay its tracks in San Bernardino, however, the City and the Railroad could not come to terms, so the SP founded Colton, California
and put its tracks south of San Bernardino. The city's first railroad was the California Southern
, which was built into San Bernardino in 1883. The California Southern was a subsidiary of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad, and was later incorporated into that system. The original California Southern depot was constructed in 1883 and destroyed by fire in 1916; it was replaced by the current Moorish-style station in 1918.
The San Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad began serving San Bernardino in 1905, arriving via Santa Fe trackage rights over Cajon Pass
. This railroad, soon renamed the Los Angeles and Salt Lake
, (LA&SL) used as its corporate logo an adaptation of the famous "arrowhead" natural feature located north of the city. The LA&SL was fully acquired by the Union Pacific Railroad
in 1921.
The City thrived as a center of commerce for local agricultural areas, including the vast orange groves of the area. In 1882, even before Los Angeles, the Opera House opened at the end of Court Street on "D" Street. It was a two-story, red brick building. It featured both light and grand opera, plays, musicians, and touring performances by such people as by Maude Adams
, Lillian Russell
, Al Jolson
, and Sarah Bernhardt
. It seated between 1,200 and 1,400. After it was remodeled in 1912, it began to show motion pictures as well. The Opera House was torn down in 1927 to extend Court Street to the 1927 Courthouse on Arrowhead Avenue.
A political war regarding the construction of a new county courthouse in the early 1890s on Court Street, as well as various attempts to move the county seat, caused the County and City of Riverside to split off from San Bernardino County. The courthouse was built on the corner of Court and "E" Street in 1892, replacing the 1874 courthouse. The Courthouse would be demolished in 1928 after building the current courthouse in 1927 along the extended court street at 351 North Arrowhead Avenue.
San Bernardino developed a thriving red light district on "D" Street in downtown, until it was closed in 1941 at the behest of the War Department. It is said that the building north of the corner of "D" Street and Court Street, built of brick in the 1880s and known as the "Wixom Block" was the site of one such brothel; tiny windows are located at the top as lookouts. The corner of 3rd and D Streets was known as "Whiskey Point" with a saloon on every corner.
A Chinatown developed on Third Street east of Arrowhead Avenue, and survived until the 1920s. Its inhabitants grew vegetables which they peddled.
In May 1886, the City of San Bernardino reincorporated as a city 5th class (a distinction that is no longer observed by California law).
In the 1891, pursuant to the congressional Act for Relief for Mission Indians, the San Manuel Indian Reservation was established. The reservation was and is located in the San Bernardino foothills, originally on 657 acres (2.7 km²) of steep foothills to the top of McKinley Mountain. The land was not suitable for agriculture and the San Manuels lived in poverty until the opening of Indian Bingo in 1986, and the later casino and water bottling plant in the 1990s and 2000s. The reservation has expanded by federalization of land purchased by or on behalf of the tribe to just over 800 acres (3.2 km²) today.
By the turn of the century, there were 6,150 residents in the City of San Bernardino.
By San Bernardino's "Centennial" in 1910, the population had grown to 12,779.
The National Orange Show
was first held in March 1911 in a tent at Fourth and E Streets and later moved to permanent quarters on Mill and E Streets. Residents often refer to the "Orange Show Curse", because at least one unusually rainy day happens during every Orange Show.
The City continued to expand generally North and west of Downtown. By the 1920s, tracts were built north of Highland Avenue and along Valencia Avenue.
The Pacific Electric Railway
reached San Bernardino with the February 8, 1911 absorption of the San Bernardino Valley Traction Company which allowed residents to easily travel to Los Angeles and beyond. The SBVTCo. had itself consolidated with most of the street railway operations to and in near-by Redlands in 1903.
The Depression and the Dust Bowl caused a wave of migrants from Oklahoma and Arkansas to arrive in San Bernardino to work the fields in and around the City.
Another flood of the Santa Ana River
in 1938 caused severe damage.
World War II brought an Army Air Corps base, San Bernardino Army Air Field, later named after Leland Francis Norton, a San Bernardino native, killed in the crash of his A-20 Havoc over Amiens, France in 1944 after saving his crew. Camp Ono was an Army base to the west of the Shandin Hills.
Post-war prosperity, coupled with continued railroad jobs, civilian and military jobs at Norton, and at Kaiser Steel in Fontana, resulted in vast housing tracts being built in the City's North central and Del Rosa areas. At the same time, the Redevelopment Agency of the City of San Bernardino was formed in 1952 to deal with the Meadowbrook neighborhood south-east of downtown San Bernardino, Ca.
(now I-215) bifurcated the town in a way the railroad had not. Because of the railroad right-of-way, motorists could only exit west with great difficulty. Mount Vernon Avenue, which had flourished as part of the interstate Route 66, started to decay.
Urban renewal
in the sixties caused the once center of town, Third Street to be gutted and replaced with the Central City Mall. Harris Company, which had opened in 1905, and opened a grand building in 1927 was one anchor, J.C. Penney’s and Montgomery Wards were the two other anchors.
Mayor Al Ballard made headlines when he equipped city fire trucks with shotguns in response to the Watts Riots
in Los Angeles
, in which shots were fired at fire trucks extinguishing flames.
California State University, San Bernardino
opened in 1965. According to former mayor Bob Holcomb
, the city getting the CSU campus was a concrete outcome of a successful fight with the Metropolitan Water District (MWD), of which San Bernardino was a founding member. It withdrew in the 1940s after plans to route the Colorado River Aqueduct
through the Cajon Pass
were changed to route the aqueduct through the San Gorgonio Pass
in Riverside County, and was subsequently successfully sued by Orange County over the amount of water it was using. After convincing the city that it had enough groundwater to resist political pressure to rejoin the MWD, Holcomb was appointed chairman of the waterboard in 1949, and Seccomb Lake was unplugged to prove that San Bernardino had enough groundwater to sustain further growth. As Hobcolmb said in a 2002 interview,
In the 70s, Hospitality Lane was first developed in the southern extreme of San Bernardino south of the Santa Ana River
, north of the 10 freeway. This put additional pressure on downtown, a factor that continues to today, but allows San Bernardino to compete regionally for office space and tax dollars.
In 1977, the City was named an "All-America" City.
The Hampshire flood took out forty homes in January 1980. In November 1980, the Panorama fire devastated the City's northern hills; in 2003 the Old Fire caused even more damage spanning from the eastern to the western borders. The San Bernardino train disaster
occurred in 1989 when a train derailed on Duffy Street, followed a few days later by an explosion on a nearby pipe.
Steve Wozniak
, the co-creator of Apple Computer, held the US Festival
at the Glen Helen Regional Park (in Devore) in 1982, and then again in 1983. The County of San Bernardino would later build the Blockbuster Pavilion (today, the Hyundai Pavilion) at this site.
Norton Air Force Base
officially closed in 1994, an event which caused the loss of 10,000 military and civilian jobs. Renamed San Bernardino International Airport
, it had no scheduled airline service and handled mostly air freight. Coupled with the recession of the early 1990s, the closing of Kaiser Steel in 1985, and Santa Fe Railroad's relocation of jobs to Topeka caused San Bernardino's economy to slide. Civic pride was further wounded when gangs pushed by LAPD suppression in Los Angeles relocated to San Bernardino. The early 1990s saw San Bernardino's crime rate increase as middle class, especially those employed at the large employers or in support of their workers, moved away.
The late 1990s to the early 2000s saw a slight upturn in fortune for San Bernardino. The City built a minor league ballpark south of downtown. Arrowhead Credit Union became a regional credit union banking leader and intended to build its new headquarters in the City. Stater Bros. Markets, a Fortune 1000
supermarket, began construction mid 2006 on a large scale distribution plant to replace the existing Grand Terrace location. Hillwood Corporation helped bring large warehouses, including those of Mattel, and Pep Boys
, to the former base and its environs. The Hub project, an extension of Hospitality Lane, opened in 2004 and 2005. Live touring theater returned to the California Theater. Though outside the City and owned by the County, The Blockbuster (later Hyundai, now Glen Helen) Pavilion brought national touring acts to San Bernardino.
In June, 2006, the City Council defeated a measure to fly a large flag purchased after 9/11 on certain legal holidays on City Hall by a vote of 4-3. The measure had failed on a 3-3 tie (with one councilmember absent) in May, 2006. The City continues to fly two regular flags in front of and on top of City Hall.
An initiative circulated by Save Our State
leader Joseph Turner regarding that illegal immigration was sent to the electorate. According to the impartial analysis prepared by the City Attorney's Office, much of the initiative, even if passed, would have probably been ruled unconstitutional or would have been preempted by federal or state law. Later, Superior Court Judge A. Rex Victor disqualified the measure from the ballot after the City filed a declaratory relief action based on a challenge by local attorney Florentino ("Tino") Garza. The court ruled that Turner had not gathered enough signatures to qualify the measure. Turner, acting on the advice of City Clerk Rachel Clark-Mendoza, had based the number on the 2001 mayoral election (in which Judith Valles ran unopposed), instead of the 2005 mayoral election (which was contested). After the defeat, Turner vowed to bring a new, harsher measure to the ballot, and he mounted an ultimately unsuccessful campaign to replace Clark-Mendoza, herself, as City Clerk by arguing that her alleged incompetence and/or corruption resulted in: uncollected tax revenues; unlicensed home rentals; and, absentee landlords that were lowering property values across the entire city.
San Bernardino, California
San Bernardino is a city located in the Riverside-San Bernardino metropolitan area , and serves as the county seat of San Bernardino County, California, United States...
, was named in 1810. This article relates to the present-day city of San Bernardino and its surrounding areas.
Earliest inhabitants
San Bernardino's earliest known inhabitants were Serrano Indians (Spanish for "people of the mountains") who spent their winters in the valley, and their summers in the cooler mountains. They were known as the "Yuhaviatam" or People of the Pines. They have lived in the valley since approximately 1000 B.C. They lived in small brush covered structures. At the time the Spanish first visited the valley, approximately 1500 Serranos inhabited the area. They lived in villages of ten to thirty structures that the Spanish named rancherías.The Tongva Indians also called the San Bernardino area Wa'aach in their language.
Spanish California
Spanish Military Commander of California Pedro Fages probably entered San Bernardino valley in 1772. Missionary priest Father Francisco Garces entered the valley in 1774, as did the de Anza Expedition, though not in present-day San Bernardino.The traditional (since there is a dispute as to the following events) founding and naming of San Bernardino is that Padre Francisco Dumetz
Francisco Dumetz
Francisco Dumetz was a Spanish Franciscan missionary. He gave the San Bernardino Valley in California its name, in 1810.-Life:He was a native of Majorca, Spain, where he entered the Franciscan Order...
, a Franciscan priest, made a trip from the Mission San Gabriel Arcángel
Mission San Gabriel Arcángel
The Mission San Gabriel Arcángel is a fully functioning Roman Catholic mission and a historic landmark in San Gabriel, California. The settlement was founded by Spaniards of the Franciscan order on "The Feast of the Birth of Mary," September 8, 1771, as the fourth of what would become 21 Spanish...
to the San Bernardino Valley
San Bernardino Valley
The San Bernardino Valley is a valley in Southern California. It lies at the south base of the Transverse Ranges. It is bordered on the north by the eastern San Gabriel Mountains and San Bernardino Mountains, on the east by the San Jacinto Mountains, and on the south and west by the Santa Ana...
on May 20, 1810, the feast day of Saint Bernardino of Siena (San Bernardino in Spanish) during California's Mission Period. That year Politana, the first Spanish settlement in the San Bernardino Valley, was established as a mission chapel and supply station for travelers on the road into California from Sonora, by the Mission San Gabriel in the a rancheria of the Guachama Indians that lived on the bluff that is now known as Bunker Hill.
Mission California
In 1819, the San Gabriel Mission created an EstanciaEstância
Estância is a municipality located in the Brazilian state of Sergipe. Its population was 62,218 and its area is 642 km². The city is the seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Estância....
at an Indian rancheria called Guachama, the site of which is in modern-day Redlands, California
Redlands, California
Redlands is a city in San Bernardino County, California, United States. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 68,747, up from 63,591 at the 2000 census. The city is located east of downtown San Bernardino.- History :...
, and Rancho San Bernardino
Rancho San Bernardino
Rancho San Bernardino was a Mexican land grant in present day San Bernardino County, California given in 1842 by Governor Juan B. Alvarado to José del Carmen Lugo, José María Lugo, Vicente Lugo, and Diego Sepulveda...
. A group of adobe buildings were constructed around 1830. A ditch, called a zanja, from Mill Creek to site was dug by local Indians for the Franciscans. The site was closed when Governor Figueroa closed down the mission system in 1834. The site would later be known as "Old San Bernardino." Today, the site is known as the (historically inaccurate) San Bernardino Asistencia
San Bernardino Asistencia
The San Bernardino de Sena Estancia was established in 1819 as a ranch outpost of Mission San Gabriel Arcángel in Redlands, California. It was built to graze cattle...
.
Jedediah Strong Smith entered the valley with 15 trappers in late November 1826 on the way to Mission San Gabriel.
Kit Carson
Kit Carson
Christopher Houston "Kit" Carson was an American frontiersman and Indian fighter. Carson left home in rural present-day Missouri at age 16 and became a Mountain man and trapper in the West. Carson explored the west to California, and north through the Rocky Mountains. He lived among and married...
and a group of trappers went through the Cajon Pass
Cajon Pass
Cajon Pass is a moderate-elevation mountain pass between the San Bernardino Mountains and the San Gabriel Mountains in Southern California in the United States. It was created by the movements of the San Andreas Fault...
in 1830. The Cajon Pass
Cajon Pass
Cajon Pass is a moderate-elevation mountain pass between the San Bernardino Mountains and the San Gabriel Mountains in Southern California in the United States. It was created by the movements of the San Andreas Fault...
was used by many early explorers, settlers, and traders going to places further West.
Rancho period
After the Mission system was dismantled by the Mexican government, several prominent Southern Californians attempted to acquire Rancho San Bernardino. In 1837, Antonia Pico and Andres Pico made an application for the land, but it was rejected. Ygnacio Palomares, applied for the right to graze cattle in the eastern San Bernardino Valley. Governor Juan Bautista Alvarado rejected the application. Instead, the governor approved a settlement plan by Antonio Maria Lugo. Lugo's proposal was to colonize the San Bernardino area, listing 27 prospective settlers.In 1839, the Lugo's colonization permit was granted for 18 leagues of land. In the same year, the Lugo Family built an adobe house where the current county courthouse sits today.
The plan for colonization was not successful. In 1841, Antonio Lugo prepared another petition. This time, it requested a land grant in the name of three of his sons, José del Carmen Lugo
José del Carmen Lugo
José del Carmen Lugo was a major Californio landowner in the Los Angeles area, who worked beginning in 1839 to develop the San Bernardino and Yucaipa valleys, an area of more than . He made an alliance with the regional Cahuilla Indians....
, José Maria Lugo, Vicente Lugo, and José del Carmen's friend, Diego Sepulveda.
On June 21, 1842, Rancho San Bernardino was granted to Antonio Maria Lugo, his sons and his nephews, who grazed approximately 4000-6000 cattle in the area. The grant included a large part of the San Bernardino valley, 37700 acres (153 km²) in all. Lugo's adobe would later become Amasa M. Lyman's house. His brother repaired the Estancia and lived there. A community that grew up astride the Santa Ana River
Santa Ana River
The Santa Ana River is the largest river of Southern California in the United States. Its drainage basin spans four counties. It rises in the San Bernardino Mountains and flows past the cities of San Bernardino and Riverside, before cutting through the northern tip of the Santa Ana Mountains and...
northeast of current-day Redlands would be known as Lugonia. It lost its identity with the November 1888 incorporation of Redlands.
In 1843, Michael White (also known in Spanish as Miguel Blanco), a Mexican citizen of English origin, was granted Rancho Muscupiabe
Rancho Muscupiabe
Rancho Muscupiabe was a Mexican land grant in present day San Bernardino County, California given to Michael White April 29, 1843 by Governor Manuel Micheltorena. The name comes from a Serrano word Muscupiabit, meaning "Place of little pines." The rancho was adjacent to the Cajon Pass.-History:In...
, named after the Serrano village Amuscupiabit, "Place of little pines." Michael White built a house overlooking the Cajon Pass
Cajon Pass
Cajon Pass is a moderate-elevation mountain pass between the San Bernardino Mountains and the San Gabriel Mountains in Southern California in the United States. It was created by the movements of the San Andreas Fault...
, but Native Americans from the desert stole his grazing stock, and he abandoned the Rancho after nine months.
Mormon San Bernardino
Mormon Battalion
The Mormon Battalion was the only religiously based unit in United States military history, and it served from July 1846 to July 1847 during the Mexican-American War. The battalion was a volunteer unit of between 534 and 559 Latter-day Saints men led by Mormon company officers, commanded by regular...
of the U.S. Army occupied San Diego and Los Angeles. A detachment of the Los Angeles troops, led by Captain Jefferson Hunt
Jefferson Hunt
Jefferson Hunt was a U.S. western pioneer, soldier, and politician. He was a captain in the Mormon Battalion, brigadier general in the California State Militia, a California State Assemblyman, and a representative to the Utah Territorial Legislature.-Early years:Hunt was born to John Hunt and...
was stationed at the southern end of the Cajon Pass
Cajon Pass
Cajon Pass is a moderate-elevation mountain pass between the San Bernardino Mountains and the San Gabriel Mountains in Southern California in the United States. It was created by the movements of the San Andreas Fault...
to protect Mexican ranchos from Indian raids. The story of the Battalion started in Council Bluffs, Iowa
Council Bluffs, Iowa
Council Bluffs, known until 1852 as Kanesville, Iowathe historic starting point of the Mormon Trail and eventual northernmost anchor town of the other emigrant trailsis a city in and the county seat of Pottawattamie County, Iowa, United States and is on the east bank of the Missouri River across...
on July 10, 1846 and arrived in San Diego on January 29, 1847. Company C was dispatched to guard the Cajon Pass
Cajon Pass
Cajon Pass is a moderate-elevation mountain pass between the San Bernardino Mountains and the San Gabriel Mountains in Southern California in the United States. It was created by the movements of the San Andreas Fault...
. On furloughs, Captain Hunt and others worked for Rancho Santa Ana del Chino
Rancho Santa Ana del Chino
Rancho Santa Ana del Chino was a Mexican land grant in the Chino Hills of present day San Bernardino County, California given to Antonio Maria Lugo in 1841 by Governor Juan Bautista Alvarado...
owner Isaac Williams
Isaac Williams
The Reverend Isaac Williams was a prominent member of the Oxford Movement, a student and disciple of John Keble and, like the other members of the movement, associated with Oxford University...
. After the War, the Battalion mainly went back to Utah
Utah
Utah is a state in the Western United States. It was the 45th state to join the Union, on January 4, 1896. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,763,885 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the...
. Many Battalion troops returned to families in Utah via San Francisco and the Sacramento area. A group led by Hunt traveled to Salt Lake City by way of the Old Spanish Trail through the Cajon Pass with which they were so familiar.
After rejoining his family in Utah, Hunt got the contract for mail delivery between Salt Lake and Los Angeles. He also organized several cattle drives, buying stock from ranchos owners to deliver to hungry Mormons in Utah. It was during this time that Hunt started preliminary negotiations with Williams with the idea of buying Rancho del Chino.
Mormon Leader Brigham Young
Brigham Young
Brigham Young was an American leader in the Latter Day Saint movement and a settler of the Western United States. He was the President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1847 until his death in 1877, he founded Salt Lake City, and he served as the first governor of the Utah...
saw Southern California as a supply source for the salt flats of Utah, and as an immigration and mail stop between Salt Lake City and San Pedro
San Pedro, Los Angeles, California
San Pedro is a port district of the city of Los Angeles, California, United States. It was annexed in 1909 and is a major seaport of the area...
, California. A group of almost 500 Mormons left Utah for California in 1851. They found abundant water in the valley, along with willows, sycamores, cottonwood and mustard, as well as the Yucca plant. The Mormon contingent was led by Captain David Seely (later first Stake President), Captain Jefferson Hunt
Jefferson Hunt
Jefferson Hunt was a U.S. western pioneer, soldier, and politician. He was a captain in the Mormon Battalion, brigadier general in the California State Militia, a California State Assemblyman, and a representative to the Utah Territorial Legislature.-Early years:Hunt was born to John Hunt and...
and Captain Andrew Lytle, and included Apostles Amasa M. Lyman and Charles C. Rich
Charles C. Rich
Charles Coulson Rich was an early leader in the Latter Day Saint movement and served as an apostle of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints ....
. They first made camp at the Sycamore Grove, about 1.5 miles (2.4 km) southeast of the present Glen Helen Regional Park. They stayed until the sale of Rancho San Bernardino could be arranged.
In September 1851, Lugo sold the Rancho to members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons). The Rancho included most of modern San Bernardino among other areas, though part of the northern areas of the City were part of Rancho Muscupiabe. The price for 40000 acres (161.9 km²) was $77,000 with $7,000 down.
The Mormons built Fort San Bernardino at the site of the present county courthouse. Inside the fort, they had small stores, and outside, they grew wheat and other crops. They later moved outside the walls of the fort when feared-attacks did not materialize. The Mormon Council House was built in 1852. It was used as the post office, school, church, and was the county courthouse from 1854 to 1858.
San Bernardino County was formed from Los Angeles County in 1853 based on Assemblyman Jefferson Hunt
Jefferson Hunt
Jefferson Hunt was a U.S. western pioneer, soldier, and politician. He was a captain in the Mormon Battalion, brigadier general in the California State Militia, a California State Assemblyman, and a representative to the Utah Territorial Legislature.-Early years:Hunt was born to John Hunt and...
's bill. Captain Hunt was a leader of the Mormon expedition.
In 1853, the Mormons laid out the current street grid system, one mile (1.6 km) square, which is based upon the grid layout of Salt Lake City. Each block was 8 acres (32,374.9 m²). The plan was laid out by Henry G. Sherwood, and assisted by Fred T. Perris. The east west streets were numbered, from First Street to Ninth Street. The north-south streets were named Kirtland Street (later "A" street, then Sierra Way); Camel Street(later "B" Street, then Mountain View Avenue; Crafton Street(later "C" Street, then Arrowhead Avenue; Utah Street (later "D" Street); Salt Lake Street (later "E" Street); California Street (later "F" Street); Independence Street (later "G" Street"); Nauvoo Street (later "H" Street); and Far West Street; (later "I" Street). The Mormons also built a road in 1853 to Los Angeles The Mormons were also responsible for the school system, creating Warm Springs, a school still in use today, as well as a school at the present site of Pioneer Park.
The City of San Bernardino was first incorporated on April 1, 1854. Mormon Apostle Amasa M. Lyman (who was later excommunicated, then postumously reinstated) was the City's first Mayor. Apostle Charles Coulson Rich became the second Mayor. At incorporation, there were approximately 1,200 residents, 900 of them Mormons. They dominated local politics and forbade drinking and gambling.
Mormons created the first timber road to the mountains, and a flour mill (on Mill Street). In 1855, they diverted water from Waterman Canyon to Town Creek by means of a flume.
The Mormons created a temple block (but never a temple) in the center of the newly-laid out town between present-day 5th, 6th, E, and F Streets. They created a "Public Square," in which they celebrated the 4th of July
Independence Day (United States)
Independence Day, commonly known as the Fourth of July, is a federal holiday in the United States commemorating the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, declaring independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain...
. Later, after the Mormons returned to Utah, part of the land went to the Catholic Church, and part went to Dr. and Mrs. Quinn. In 1873, Bishop Amat, the Bishop of the Los Angeles and Monterrey Diocese, granted the northern part of the block to the City. It was later called "City Park," then "Lugo Park" until 1915, when it was renamed Pioneer Park, which it is still called today. A Pavilion, a log cabin, and the Municipal Auditorium (erected in 1921 to honor the dead of World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
were all built in the park, though the Pavilion and log cabin burnt down, and the Auditorium was torn down in 1979. The Norman F. Feldheym Library was built on the site in 1985. The park also contains two Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
cannons.
The Mormons named the Arrowhead, California
Arrowhead, California
Arrowhead Springs is the name of a neighborhood in the municipality of San Bernardino, California, officially annexed to the city on November 19, 2009...
, a natural rock formation above Arrowhead Springs, the "Ace of Spades." On a clear day, the Arrowhead can be seen from downtown San Bernardino.
A small Jewish community formed in Mormon San Bernardino, including Lewis Jacobs and Marcus Katz in 1852. Lewis Jacobs was a miner and a peddler. He co-owned a mountain sawmill, started the original Bank of San Bernardino, and helped establish the Home of Eternity Cemetery. Services began in the 1850s, but Congregation Emanuel, still active today, was not officially chartered until 1891, and its first structure was built in 1921. The Home of Eternity Cemetery was given by the Mormons to the Jews. It is the oldest Jewish cemetery in continuous use in Southern California. Marcus Katz was a merchant and civic leader and the name-sake of the four story Katz Building (built in the 1890s) at Third and "E" Streets. He died in 1899.
Recall
The Mormons were recalled by President Brigham Young back to Salt Lake City in 1857. The reason for the failure of the community cannot be found in just one underlying cause: there was the anti-Mormon persecution (mostly apostatized members), the short-lived Utah War, the recall of the two Apostles-Lyman and Rich, but mostly it was the weakness/inexperience of the mostly new member congregation of the young church to remain strong among so many nonbelievers. So, Pres. Young called them home to Utah where they could learn and mature. (Joseph Wood, "The Mormon Church in San Bernardino: 1851-1857," Thesis, University of Utah,1967)Another possible explanation for the recall was Young's fear of a rival settlement to Salt Lake in a better location with a better climate with greater agricultural possibilities. Many Mormon migrants were expecting to go to California from the beginning. Young was probably headed there all along as demonstrated by a vanguard shipload of Mormons organized by Samuel Brannan who had already arrived in San Francisco from New York and were waiting for the main party there. The Mormon Battalion was also there, at the expense of the US Government to which Young had offered the manpower as a way of getting them to California. Brannan met Young in Utah and tried to convince him to keep going. Young ignored his advice and stopped at Salt Lake before himself returning east for the winter. Brannan returned to San Francisco. Young was later interested in California as a source of resupply and of tithing income from Mormon gold diggers. He was not happy with the large response in Utah to the Lyman and Rich call for San Bernardino. He was wary of Lyman and Rich's independence and feared a mass migration from Utah to California. At one point sentries were placed around settlements and along the trails to prevent Mormons from leaving Utah at the risk of being shot. Young, who had authorized the venture, undermined the San Bernardino operation almost from the beginning and guaranteed its failure and the financial loss of the investors by calling them back just before the mortgage was paid off, depressing the value of the real estate as they all rushed to sell. Many who had already made great sacrifices for the Church were wiped out again by Young's far from benign actions. Many were forced to sell their property at a fraction of their original cost.
Though some of the Mormons remained, mainline Latter Day Saint structures were not reestablish until the 1920s. The remaining residents lacked organization and resources to compensate for the mass departure of the predominant Mormon population, which devastated the local economy. The City disincorporated. Among the people remaining was Celia Mounts Hunt, Captain Hunt's wife. She died on January 28, 1897 and is buried in Pioneer Cemetery.
In 1857, three orange trees were planted in Old San Bernardino. They were not the Washington Navel Orange that would later achieve great fame; they came in 1873 from Brazil to Riverside, California
Riverside, California
Riverside is a city in Riverside County, California, United States, and the county seat of the eponymous county. Named for its location beside the Santa Ana River, it is the largest city in the Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario metropolitan area of Southern California, 4th largest inland California...
, then a part of San Bernardino County.
The City continued to develop in the Mormon absence, largely as a commercial center. Dr. Ben Barton arrived in 1858, erecting an adobe drugstore/office at 4th and "C" (now Arrowhead Avenue) Street. Barton also became postmaster, County Superintendent of Schools, and purchased the Estancia
Estância
Estância is a municipality located in the Brazilian state of Sergipe. Its population was 62,218 and its area is 642 km². The city is the seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Estância....
which is today on Barton Road in Redlands, and moved there with his family. He died in 1899.
1860s and 1870s
Holcomb Valley
Holcomb Valley, located in the San Bernardino Mountains about five miles north of Big Bear Lake, was the site of the most gold mined in Southern California. It was named after William F. Holcomb, who discovered gold there in 1860. That year started the largest gold rush in Southern California to...
and Bear Valleys in 1860. The boom-town of Belleville
Belleville, California
Belleville, California was a gold mining boomtown in the San Bernardino Mountains of San Bernardino County, California. It grew up rapidly following the discovery of gold by William F. Holcomb in Holcomb Valley early in 1860. Belleville was named after Belle, the first child born in the new town...
briefly threatened to take the county seat away from San Bernardino. San Bernardino won by one vote.
California remained in the Union during the Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
, however, there were many Confederate sympathizers in the area. A brief skirmish between Unionists and Confederate sympathizers erupted in the mountains.
The stagecoaches of Phineas Banning
Phineas Banning
Phineas Banning was an American businessman, financier, and entrepreneur.Known as "The Father of the Port of Los Angeles," he was one of the founders of the town of Wilmington, which was named for his birthplace...
had a stop in downtown San Bernardino during the 1860s.
In 1862, a flood largely destroyed the earlier settlement of Agua Mansa
Agua Mansa, California
Agua Mansa is a former settlement in an unincorpated area of San Bernardino County, California, United States. Now a ghost town, only the cemetery remains, it once was the largest settlement in San Bernardino County. The town was established in 1845 on the Santa Ana River, across from the town of...
, settled in the 1830s by New Mexicans in present day Colton
Colton, California
Colton is a city in San Bernardino County, California, United States. The city is located in the Inland Empire region of the state and is approximately 57 miles east of Los Angeles. The population of Colton is 52,154 according to the 2010 census, up from 47,662 at the 2000 census.Colton is the...
. The Catholic Church there was rebuilt in downtown San Bernardino in 1865. That wooden church burnt down in 1878 and another was built. The present church, at the corner of Fifth Street and "F" was built in 1910. The flood caused severe damage along the Santa Ana River's tributaries, particularly Lytle Creek. Topsoil
Topsoil
Topsoil is the upper, outermost layer of soil, usually the top to . It has the highest concentration of organic matter and microorganisms and is where most of the Earth's biological soil activity occurs.-Importance:...
was washed away.
Loretta Young
Loretta Young was an American actress. Starting as a child actress, she had a long and varied career in film from 1917 to 1953...
, Mary Pickford
Mary Pickford
Mary Pickford was a Canadian-born motion picture actress, co-founder of the film studio United Artists and one of the original 36 founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences...
, Spencer Tracy
Spencer Tracy
Spencer Bonaventure Tracy was an American theatrical and film actor, who appeared in 75 films from 1930 to 1967. Tracy was one of the major stars of Hollywood's Golden Age, ranking among the top ten box office draws for almost every year from 1938 to 1951...
, and Humphrey Bogart
Humphrey Bogart
Humphrey DeForest Bogart was an American actor. He is widely regarded as a cultural icon.The American Film Institute ranked Bogart as the greatest male star in the history of American cinema....
. A forest fire destroyed the third hotel in November 1938. The present structure (the fourth hotel) opened in December 1939 at a cost of $1.5 million. This time, the hotel was six stories, and the grand opening featured Judy Garland
Judy Garland
Judy Garland was an American actress and singer. Through a career that spanned 45 of her 47 years and for her renowned contralto voice, she attained international stardom as an actress in musical and dramatic roles, as a recording artist and on the concert stage...
, Al Jolson
Al Jolson
Al Jolson was an American singer, comedian and actor. In his heyday, he was dubbed "The World's Greatest Entertainer"....
, and Rudy Vallee
Rudy Vallée
Rudy Vallée was an American singer, actor, bandleader, and entertainer.-Early life:Born Hubert Prior Vallée in Island Pond, Vermont, the son of Charles Alphonse and Catherine Lynch Vallée...
. However, World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
caused the hotel to be taken over as naval hospital in 1944. After the war, Elizabeth Taylor
Elizabeth Taylor
Dame Elizabeth Rosemond "Liz" Taylor, DBE was a British-American actress. From her early years as a child star with MGM, she became one of the great screen actresses of Hollywood's Golden Age...
spent her honeymoon with Conrad Hilton
Conrad Hilton
Conrad Nicholson Hilton was an American businessman and investor. He is well known for being the founder of the Hilton Hotels chain.-Early life:Hilton was born in San Antonio, New Mexico...
on the sixth floor. The hotel was purchased by Campus Crusade for Christ
Campus Crusade for Christ
Campus Crusade for Christ is an interdenominational Christian organization that promotes evangelism and discipleship in more than 190 countries...
in 1962. It was used as world headquarters until 1991. It was operated as a Christian Conference Center in 1999. The City of San Bernardino is trying to annex the property into the City as part of a private development and redevelopment of Arrowhead Springs. In 1894, Arrowhead Brand Mountain Spring Water began to be pumped from near the site, as it is today. However, Arrowhead Brand Water also comes from "natural mountain sources in the United States and Canada" since it was purchased by Nestle Waters North America, Inc.
Wyatt Earp
Wyatt Berry Stapp Earp was an American gambler, investor, and law enforcement officer who served in several Western frontier towns. He was also at different times a farmer, teamster, bouncer, saloon-keeper, miner and boxing referee. However, he was never a drover or cowboy. He is most well known...
and his family traveled to San Bernardino by wagon train, arriving in 1864. Virgil Earp
Virgil Earp
Virgil Walter Earp fought in the Civil War. He was U.S. Deputy Marshal for south-eastern Arizona and Tombstone City Marshal at the time of the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral in the Arizona Territory. Two months after the shootout in Tombstone, outlaw Cowboys ambushed Virgil on the streets of...
later settled in Colton, California
Colton, California
Colton is a city in San Bernardino County, California, United States. The city is located in the Inland Empire region of the state and is approximately 57 miles east of Los Angeles. The population of Colton is 52,154 according to the 2010 census, up from 47,662 at the 2000 census.Colton is the...
, where he became town marshal. Late in life, in the 1920s, Wyatt became a ceremonial San Bernardino County Deputy Sheriff.
In 1866, militia forces from San Bernardino killed Serrano
Serrano (people)
The Serrano are a Native American tribe of present day California, United States. They use the autonyms of Taaqtam, meaning "people"; Maarenga'yam, "people from Morongo"; and Yuhaviatam, "people of the pines." The Serrano historically populated the San Bernardino Mountains and extended east into...
men, women, and children in a 32-day campaign. Yuhaviatam tribal leader Santos Manuel (from whom the name "San Manuel comes)led the remaining Yuhaviatam from the mountains to valley floor.
In August 1867, the first Chinese immigrants arrived in San Bernardino. By 1870, there were 16 young males, including Ah Wing and Jim Kang. They were laundry men, cooks, and houseboys, according to the Census. During a state-wide depression in 1875, San Bernardino's Caucasian residents criticized the Chinese for depressing wage rates. The Chinese were forced to move in 1878 to a Chinatown on Third Street between what is now Arrowhead Avenue and Sierra Way. By the late 1890s, San Bernardino's Chinatown had between 400-600 residents. Many of its residents worked in produce, with farms in what would become the Base Line Gardens tract east of Waterman Avenue. By the mid 1920s, Chinatown was largely abandoned. It became the site for Caltrans. When the Caltrans buildings were torn-down, several Chinese artifacts were found. The site is being prepared for a parking lot, and is slated to eventually become a new central court building.
By the 1870s, the City had several large stores and two hotels.
Though the first orange trees were planted in the county in 1857, in 1873 the first Washington Navel Orange tree
Orange (fruit)
An orange—specifically, the sweet orange—is the citrus Citrus × sinensis and its fruit. It is the most commonly grown tree fruit in the world....
was planted in Riverside, then a part of San Bernardino County. The area, like many others in Southern California, became associated with oranges. An orange still graces the city seal today, and represents all agriculture in the City.
In 1874, the County established the first permanent courthouse built for that purpose, a two-story structure.
Rail wars, rise to local prominence
Southern Pacific Railroad
The Southern Pacific Transportation Company , earlier Southern Pacific Railroad and Southern Pacific Company, and usually simply called the Southern Pacific or Espee, was an American railroad....
(SP) wanted to lay its tracks in San Bernardino, however, the City and the Railroad could not come to terms, so the SP founded Colton, California
Colton, California
Colton is a city in San Bernardino County, California, United States. The city is located in the Inland Empire region of the state and is approximately 57 miles east of Los Angeles. The population of Colton is 52,154 according to the 2010 census, up from 47,662 at the 2000 census.Colton is the...
and put its tracks south of San Bernardino. The city's first railroad was the California Southern
California Southern Railroad
The California Southern Railroad was a subsidiary railroad of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway in Southern California. It was organized July 10, 1880, and chartered on October 23, 1880, to build a rail connection between what has become the city of Barstow and San Diego,...
, which was built into San Bernardino in 1883. The California Southern was a subsidiary of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad, and was later incorporated into that system. The original California Southern depot was constructed in 1883 and destroyed by fire in 1916; it was replaced by the current Moorish-style station in 1918.
The San Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad began serving San Bernardino in 1905, arriving via Santa Fe trackage rights over Cajon Pass
Cajon Pass
Cajon Pass is a moderate-elevation mountain pass between the San Bernardino Mountains and the San Gabriel Mountains in Southern California in the United States. It was created by the movements of the San Andreas Fault...
. This railroad, soon renamed the Los Angeles and Salt Lake
Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad
The Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad was a rail company that completed and operated a railway line between its namesake cities, via Las Vegas, Nevada. Incorporated in Utah in 1901 as the San Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad, the line was largely the brainchild of William Andrews Clark,...
, (LA&SL) used as its corporate logo an adaptation of the famous "arrowhead" natural feature located north of the city. The LA&SL was fully acquired by the Union Pacific Railroad
Union Pacific Railroad
The Union Pacific Railroad , headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, is the largest railroad network in the United States. James R. Young is president, CEO and Chairman....
in 1921.
The City thrived as a center of commerce for local agricultural areas, including the vast orange groves of the area. In 1882, even before Los Angeles, the Opera House opened at the end of Court Street on "D" Street. It was a two-story, red brick building. It featured both light and grand opera, plays, musicians, and touring performances by such people as by Maude Adams
Maude Adams
Maude Ewing Kiskadden , known professionally as Maude Adams, was an American stage actress who achieved her greatest success as Peter Pan. Adams's personality appealed to a large audience and helped her become the most successful and highest-paid performer of her day, with a yearly income of more...
, Lillian Russell
Lillian Russell
Lillian Russell was an American actress and singer. She became one of the most famous actresses and singers of the late 19th century and early 20th century, known for her beauty and style, as well as for her voice and stage presence.Russell was born in Iowa but raised in Chicago...
, Al Jolson
Al Jolson
Al Jolson was an American singer, comedian and actor. In his heyday, he was dubbed "The World's Greatest Entertainer"....
, and Sarah Bernhardt
Sarah Bernhardt
Sarah Bernhardt was a French stage and early film actress, and has been referred to as "the most famous actress the world has ever known". Bernhardt made her fame on the stages of France in the 1870s, and was soon in demand in Europe and the Americas...
. It seated between 1,200 and 1,400. After it was remodeled in 1912, it began to show motion pictures as well. The Opera House was torn down in 1927 to extend Court Street to the 1927 Courthouse on Arrowhead Avenue.
San Bernardino developed a thriving red light district on "D" Street in downtown, until it was closed in 1941 at the behest of the War Department. It is said that the building north of the corner of "D" Street and Court Street, built of brick in the 1880s and known as the "Wixom Block" was the site of one such brothel; tiny windows are located at the top as lookouts. The corner of 3rd and D Streets was known as "Whiskey Point" with a saloon on every corner.
A Chinatown developed on Third Street east of Arrowhead Avenue, and survived until the 1920s. Its inhabitants grew vegetables which they peddled.
In May 1886, the City of San Bernardino reincorporated as a city 5th class (a distinction that is no longer observed by California law).
In the 1891, pursuant to the congressional Act for Relief for Mission Indians, the San Manuel Indian Reservation was established. The reservation was and is located in the San Bernardino foothills, originally on 657 acres (2.7 km²) of steep foothills to the top of McKinley Mountain. The land was not suitable for agriculture and the San Manuels lived in poverty until the opening of Indian Bingo in 1986, and the later casino and water bottling plant in the 1990s and 2000s. The reservation has expanded by federalization of land purchased by or on behalf of the tribe to just over 800 acres (3.2 km²) today.
The dawn of the 20th Century
By San Bernardino's "Centennial" in 1910, the population had grown to 12,779.
The National Orange Show
National Orange Show Festival
The National Orange Show Festival is an annual festival held in San Bernardino County, California since 1911. A fun event for most San Bernardino residents, there remains a legend regarding the opening of the show — it always marks rain for the usually dry Southern California residents. The show...
was first held in March 1911 in a tent at Fourth and E Streets and later moved to permanent quarters on Mill and E Streets. Residents often refer to the "Orange Show Curse", because at least one unusually rainy day happens during every Orange Show.
The City continued to expand generally North and west of Downtown. By the 1920s, tracts were built north of Highland Avenue and along Valencia Avenue.
The Pacific Electric Railway
Pacific Electric Railway
The Pacific Electric Railway , also known as the Red Car system, was a mass transit system in Southern California using streetcars, light rail, and buses...
reached San Bernardino with the February 8, 1911 absorption of the San Bernardino Valley Traction Company which allowed residents to easily travel to Los Angeles and beyond. The SBVTCo. had itself consolidated with most of the street railway operations to and in near-by Redlands in 1903.
The Depression and the Dust Bowl caused a wave of migrants from Oklahoma and Arkansas to arrive in San Bernardino to work the fields in and around the City.
Another flood of the Santa Ana River
Santa Ana River
The Santa Ana River is the largest river of Southern California in the United States. Its drainage basin spans four counties. It rises in the San Bernardino Mountains and flows past the cities of San Bernardino and Riverside, before cutting through the northern tip of the Santa Ana Mountains and...
in 1938 caused severe damage.
World War II and its aftermath
Post-war prosperity, coupled with continued railroad jobs, civilian and military jobs at Norton, and at Kaiser Steel in Fontana, resulted in vast housing tracts being built in the City's North central and Del Rosa areas. At the same time, the Redevelopment Agency of the City of San Bernardino was formed in 1952 to deal with the Meadowbrook neighborhood south-east of downtown San Bernardino, Ca.
Redevelopment and decline
During the 60s, the Inland Center Mall opened, drawing business away from downtown. Interstate 15Interstate 15 in California
In the U.S. state of California, Interstate 15 is a major north–south route through the San Bernardino, Riverside, and San Diego Counties, and it has a length of in the state. It is a major thoroughfare for traffic between Southern California and Las Vegas, Nevada, as well as points beyond...
(now I-215) bifurcated the town in a way the railroad had not. Because of the railroad right-of-way, motorists could only exit west with great difficulty. Mount Vernon Avenue, which had flourished as part of the interstate Route 66, started to decay.
Urban renewal
Urban renewal
Urban renewal is a program of land redevelopment in areas of moderate to high density urban land use. Renewal has had both successes and failures. Its modern incarnation began in the late 19th century in developed nations and experienced an intense phase in the late 1940s – under the rubric of...
in the sixties caused the once center of town, Third Street to be gutted and replaced with the Central City Mall. Harris Company, which had opened in 1905, and opened a grand building in 1927 was one anchor, J.C. Penney’s and Montgomery Wards were the two other anchors.
Watts Riots
The Watts Riots or the Watts Rebellion was a civil disturbance in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, California from August 11 to August 15, 1965. The 5-day riot resulted in 34 deaths, 1,032 injuries, and 3,438 arrests...
in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
, in which shots were fired at fire trucks extinguishing flames.
California State University, San Bernardino
California State University, San Bernardino
California State University, San Bernardino, also known as Cal State San Bernardino or CSUSB is a public research university and one of the twenty three general campuses of the California State University system. The main campus sits on in the suburban University District of , United States, with...
opened in 1965. According to former mayor Bob Holcomb
Bob Holcomb
William Robert "Bob" Holcomb was an American politician and attorney. Holcomb was the longest serving Mayor of San Bernardino, California, to date. He held office as San Bernardino's mayor from 1971 until 1985, and returned to office again from 1989 until 1993...
, the city getting the CSU campus was a concrete outcome of a successful fight with the Metropolitan Water District (MWD), of which San Bernardino was a founding member. It withdrew in the 1940s after plans to route the Colorado River Aqueduct
Colorado River Aqueduct
The Colorado River Aqueduct, or CRA, is a water conveyance in Southern California in the United States, operated by the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California . The aqueduct impounds water from the Colorado River at Lake Havasu on the California-Arizona border west across the Mojave...
through the Cajon Pass
Cajon Pass
Cajon Pass is a moderate-elevation mountain pass between the San Bernardino Mountains and the San Gabriel Mountains in Southern California in the United States. It was created by the movements of the San Andreas Fault...
were changed to route the aqueduct through the San Gorgonio Pass
San Gorgonio Pass
The San Gorgonio Pass el. cuts between the San Bernardino Mountains on the north and the San Jacinto Mountains to the south. Like the Cajon Pass to the northwest, it was also created by the San Andreas Fault...
in Riverside County, and was subsequently successfully sued by Orange County over the amount of water it was using. After convincing the city that it had enough groundwater to resist political pressure to rejoin the MWD, Holcomb was appointed chairman of the waterboard in 1949, and Seccomb Lake was unplugged to prove that San Bernardino had enough groundwater to sustain further growth. As Hobcolmb said in a 2002 interview,
"...As it got closer and closer to select a site for the college, the city wasn't even going to... try, and the Chamber of Commerce, I went to the Chamber of Commerce and asked them to, you know, for a committee and let's get a college in San Bernardino... They still said we don't have the water, you know, and this was after the city had voted down MWD... I said, 'You have plenty of water.' No, so anyway, my job, I formed my own committee to bring the state college. My primary job was to convince the state that we had the water and get the water problem off the agenda so that it wouldn't shoot us down like everyone thought it would. ...We... got the three or four large land owners controlled all the land out there... to agree on a very reasonable price for their land and I got options from them that they would sell, you know, if the state selected San Bernardino. Got the city to lay out the road system and to engineer the sewer system and engineer the water system and then so all this was- and then they did all the testing that you'd normally for a developing of university- like soil tests. We had all those things done and we had a private engineering firm do a lot of work that would be normally done by the state. The board of trustees was meeting, I think was up in San Jose to, and that would be one of the items on the agenda was to select a site. So, I went up to the meeting. ...And I said, 'One thing, we have plenty of water. We can give you all the water you need.' I... showed them how the water thing was okay... And so the rest of it was slam dunk... The president of the state- the state college boards was an architect by the name of, I think, Charles Leckmen... He says, ...there's no competition. San Bernardino is so far a head of all the other sites that, that we don't have to worry about how much it's going to cost, we don't have to worry about where the roads are going to go, and so they voted that day to put it here- San Bernardino."
In the 70s, Hospitality Lane was first developed in the southern extreme of San Bernardino south of the Santa Ana River
Santa Ana River
The Santa Ana River is the largest river of Southern California in the United States. Its drainage basin spans four counties. It rises in the San Bernardino Mountains and flows past the cities of San Bernardino and Riverside, before cutting through the northern tip of the Santa Ana Mountains and...
, north of the 10 freeway. This put additional pressure on downtown, a factor that continues to today, but allows San Bernardino to compete regionally for office space and tax dollars.
In 1977, the City was named an "All-America" City.
The Hampshire flood took out forty homes in January 1980. In November 1980, the Panorama fire devastated the City's northern hills; in 2003 the Old Fire caused even more damage spanning from the eastern to the western borders. The San Bernardino train disaster
San Bernardino train disaster
The San Bernardino Train Disaster, sometimes known as the Duffy Street Incident, is a combination of two separate but related incidents which occurred in San Bernardino, California: A runaway train derailment on May 12, 1989, and the subsequent failure on May 25, 1989, of a petroleum pipeline...
occurred in 1989 when a train derailed on Duffy Street, followed a few days later by an explosion on a nearby pipe.
Steve Wozniak
Steve Wozniak
Stephen Gary "Woz" Wozniak is an American computer engineer and programmer who founded Apple Computer, Co. with Steve Jobs and Ronald Wayne...
, the co-creator of Apple Computer, held the US Festival
US Festival
The US Festivals were two early 1980s music and culture festivals sponsored by Steve Wozniak, formerly of Apple Computer. The first was held Labor Day weekend in September 1982 and the second was Memorial Day weekend in May 1983...
at the Glen Helen Regional Park (in Devore) in 1982, and then again in 1983. The County of San Bernardino would later build the Blockbuster Pavilion (today, the Hyundai Pavilion) at this site.
Norton Air Force Base
Norton Air Force Base
Norton Air Force Base is a former front-line United States Air Force facility located east of downtown San Bernardino, California in San Bernardino County.-Overview:...
officially closed in 1994, an event which caused the loss of 10,000 military and civilian jobs. Renamed San Bernardino International Airport
San Bernardino International Airport
San Bernardino International Airport is a public airport located two miles southeast of the central business district of San Bernardino, California, in San Bernardino County, California, USA. The airport covers and has one runway. It is currently a general aviation and cargo airport located on...
, it had no scheduled airline service and handled mostly air freight. Coupled with the recession of the early 1990s, the closing of Kaiser Steel in 1985, and Santa Fe Railroad's relocation of jobs to Topeka caused San Bernardino's economy to slide. Civic pride was further wounded when gangs pushed by LAPD suppression in Los Angeles relocated to San Bernardino. The early 1990s saw San Bernardino's crime rate increase as middle class, especially those employed at the large employers or in support of their workers, moved away.
The late 1990s to the early 2000s saw a slight upturn in fortune for San Bernardino. The City built a minor league ballpark south of downtown. Arrowhead Credit Union became a regional credit union banking leader and intended to build its new headquarters in the City. Stater Bros. Markets, a Fortune 1000
Fortune 1000
Fortune 1000 is a reference to a list maintained by the American business magazine Fortune. The list is of the 1000 largest American companies, ranked on revenues alone...
supermarket, began construction mid 2006 on a large scale distribution plant to replace the existing Grand Terrace location. Hillwood Corporation helped bring large warehouses, including those of Mattel, and Pep Boys
Pep Boys
The Pep Boys — Manny, Moe & Jack , branded as Pep Boys Auto and commonly abbreviated as Pep Boys, is a full-service and tire automotive aftermarket chain....
, to the former base and its environs. The Hub project, an extension of Hospitality Lane, opened in 2004 and 2005. Live touring theater returned to the California Theater. Though outside the City and owned by the County, The Blockbuster (later Hyundai, now Glen Helen) Pavilion brought national touring acts to San Bernardino.
Recent history
Judge Patrick J. Morris defeated City Attorney James F. Penman in a run-off for Mayor in early 2006. Judge Morris instituted a program called "Operation Phoenix" covering a twenty-block area of central city. The program was intended to prevent crime in a high-crime area using suppression and social services.In June, 2006, the City Council defeated a measure to fly a large flag purchased after 9/11 on certain legal holidays on City Hall by a vote of 4-3. The measure had failed on a 3-3 tie (with one councilmember absent) in May, 2006. The City continues to fly two regular flags in front of and on top of City Hall.
An initiative circulated by Save Our State
Save Our State
Save Our State is an activist organization opposed to illegal immigration in Southern California. The group also has a chapter in Northern California...
leader Joseph Turner regarding that illegal immigration was sent to the electorate. According to the impartial analysis prepared by the City Attorney's Office, much of the initiative, even if passed, would have probably been ruled unconstitutional or would have been preempted by federal or state law. Later, Superior Court Judge A. Rex Victor disqualified the measure from the ballot after the City filed a declaratory relief action based on a challenge by local attorney Florentino ("Tino") Garza. The court ruled that Turner had not gathered enough signatures to qualify the measure. Turner, acting on the advice of City Clerk Rachel Clark-Mendoza, had based the number on the 2001 mayoral election (in which Judith Valles ran unopposed), instead of the 2005 mayoral election (which was contested). After the defeat, Turner vowed to bring a new, harsher measure to the ballot, and he mounted an ultimately unsuccessful campaign to replace Clark-Mendoza, herself, as City Clerk by arguing that her alleged incompetence and/or corruption resulted in: uncollected tax revenues; unlicensed home rentals; and, absentee landlords that were lowering property values across the entire city.